The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Literary Fiction’s Dilemma

The study of a case known as Heinz’s Dilemma is often cited in ethics and morality classes—usually at the college and grad school level, but on occasion in high schools.

The dilemma: Heinz’s wife has a rare form of cancer and a local pharmacist has discovered the one drug that offers a good chance that her life can be saved—a form of radium (or left vague in some versions of the narrative of the study…it has several minor variations among its many different examples—including some versions that the drug offers a certain cure).

The pharmacist pays $200 for the medicine and charges $2,000. Heinz goes to everyone he knows in the town and can only raise $1,100—still greater than five times the druggist’s cost for the drug. Heinz asks him to sell it for the $1,100, but the pharmacist says no, that he’s a businessman and the price is the price and that’s the deal.

Heinz steals the drug. The ethical question: is he wrong? The question has been put to a number of subjects in several studies (the famous Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development offers six stages of response), but the one I’m focusing on was offered to three age groups (with only three possible responses)—children of ten, teens around fifteen, and a number of people in their early twenties.

Now: before offering the results, I should say that any anecdotal conclusions I draw here came from a conversation I had with another writer of literary fiction about our shared frustration that most people (perhaps increasingly) don’t seem to be drawn to fiction that offers more questions than answers. This is nothing new—but the situation, as Jane Smiley points out in Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, is getting worse. It’s doubtful that we would see, say, Mary Gaitskill’s dark and emotionally complex debut collection Bad Behavior on a major press today. But the late 80’s and early 90’s were something of a heyday for challenging and gritty work—to the point that we even saw writers such as Kathy Acker on a major house like Grove. The major press support for work that often aimed to (or did, at any rate) unsettle changed radically around the time of the recession—and had already begun to erode with other factors such as 9/11 and the increasing corporatization of publishers and demise of brick-and-mortar stores. All of which created a perfect storm of the marginalization of literature that was not, by its very nature, “crowd pleasing” and aimed to make people forget their troubles, while also economically consumed in large numbers.

Smiley’s argument extends beyond the common lament that people are leading less and less and she focuses on statistics that point to only adult males reading less fiction while women and children are, in many studies, are reading more than in the past. She then argues that the basic power structure of our society has not greatly changed—we are still governed, by and large, by men of affluence. Smiley makes the point that if we continued to be governed by people who are losing, increasingly, the ability to see the world from someone else’s point of view (fictions’ great gift as an art form), we are only on track to become a more selfish and less empathetic culture.

Back to the study (or, rather, one of the many studies based around this dilemma)—and the theory behind this is that it’s unimportant what the participants think Heinz should have done, but why they think he should have done what he chooses to do:

Just shy of one hundred percent (near 98%) of the ten year olds said that Heinz was wrong because he would be punished. Not surprising—it’s not an age of complex emotional thought and it is an age where an internalized version of Freud’s superego (or whatever you choose to call it) tends to dominate such choices. Things are wrong because someone in authority says they are wrong.

The same amount of fifteen year olds said he was wrong simply because stealing is wrong. An age dominated by conventional morality. Though also an age of rampant shoplifting, so take from it what you may. (A friend offers the theory of the teenager’s tendency to view him/herself as an exception to everything, feeling invincible, feeling “special”—the rules apply to Heinz, but no rules apply to themselves.)

Between ten and fifteen percent of the oldest (not coincidentally when the frontal lobe—especially in women in their early 20’s and men by their mid-20’s—develops most fully, with one of its primary functions determining “good” from “bad”) said that Heinz was correct in his choice because his motivation (love) was better and more important than the pharmacist’s (greed/money). This is where non-conventional (and/or relative) ethics start to enter the picture. Though still at, I would argue, a frighteningly low percentage of a population—but also a relatively large number, in total (if not percentage), of those who buy books.

But/and it strikes me that most good writing (and here, I’ll put my vote in for “good” being synonymous with ethically complex—among a great many of other things that factor into quality, only a couple being a rigorous attention to craft and perhaps an author’s desire while writing the work to matter/last beyond a New York publishing “season” that often gives books about as long a chance as fresh produce to reach its buyers) concerns itself with issues of non-conventional morality. It’s is also about the reader’s ability to interpret ambiguous morality for him/herself. And it’s about texts open to numerous interpretations—about the complexity of reader response criticism.

And great fiction tends to arise from questions—not set or pat answers. As Kundera once said, his whole career has boiled down (no matter which narrative he told) to the question of what happens to the individual living under totalitarian regime. His lifelong obsession with that question is hardly “the” answer—but at times only a series of an ever more complex set of questions.

I’m of course making a leap here—if only ten to fifteen percent of adults argue for/respond to non-conventional ethics, this may be one of many factors that speak to why a greater portion of the reading public (to say nothing of the public at large) don’t respond to literary fiction the way they do to mainstream fiction. Most mainstream narratives (and I’m a fan of plenty of it—this is hardly an argument for its destruction)—books, films and TV tend to resolve themselves to what I’d call a narrative of reassurance. The average mystery or crime novel (to say nothing of the romance genre or of TV shows like CSI and any of the many shows—entertaining as they may be—in the Law and Order franchise) end with order restored. Justice tends to prevail, resolve is achieved and the social order is vindicated.

Whereas literary fiction (and I should, of course, include literary memoir…any such work) such as those by (to name a very few who, in previous eras in publishing, have broken through with their debuts/early work) Kundera, Baldwin, Lahiri, Carver, Hempel, Moore, as well as any number of writers such as Lethem or, at times, Ellroy, who consciously thwart the genre they are working in, concerns itself with ethical questions more complex than standard morality/ethics allow for. Fiction at its best is not often an argumentative form (the essay is a nice sturdy form if we have a persuasive argument to make). That’s not to say fiction can’t (and doesn’t) have ideas and arguments (though only the best can make this rise above propaganda), but fiction is largely a form of illustration and not explanation.

In a side note, Heinz’s Dilemma is hardly simply an intellectual exercise. Given the situation with the druggist, we can see parallels with modern drug companies keeping a position very similar to his. They are in business (sure, fair enough…but how much money is enough money?)—and if several poor people can’t afford what could cure them, well, that’s their tough luck. But this is general—the Heinz situation is specific. And it’s like the old notion that ten thousand people dying in an earthquake halfway across the world is sad, but your niece with lymphoma is tragic. It’s in the specifics that we connect. Where we allow ourselves to realize (or can realize) how much we matter to each other. How much the value of love and connection may allow us to see the world as more complex, more relative and flexible than our mainstream narrative of reassurance will allow for. To privilege narratives that simply reinforce the status quo is to remain stagnant emotionally as a culture.

To offer an audience a narrative that not just fosters empathy but also disturbs notions of traditional morality—a narrative that mirrors and points out the ugly truths of life: that evil is frequently unpunished, that greed is not only rewarded but celebrated and encouraged, that celebrity is privileged over achievement—to offer a narrative that ends with characters shifted, lost or disturbed and left without pat answers in/for his or her world is to offer the reader a narrative that leaves them disturbed and upset. Think about the metaphoric implication of when we say we’ve been “moved” by a piece of narrative. This suggests a shift. Us rocked off our previous footing. This can’t be done by a narrative that offers no challenge to what the reader already thinks going in to the narrative. Work that moves us has disturbed (in the best sense) our previous sense of the world. This is where growth occurs.

We are messy creatures. Beautiful, flawed, disturbed, at times selfless and at times selfish animals left to attempt to make sense of a world that doesn’t lend itself to easy questions or easy answers. To document a world where we are neither gods nor beasts but often a mix of both is to document a world most don’t like to think about. One of my best friends has been told by one of her best friends that she won’t read her books because they are “too depressing” and she has no desire to think of such things. The writer’s friend is far from alone.

Our childhood fears prove true. There are monsters under the bed. Everything is not always going to be okay. The world breaks us all in a million little ways and a few big ones all the time. And we are, at our best, there for each other through those times, in a million little ways and a few big ones all the time—but with few answers and no resolve.

Still, for all of this, I think the Heinz Dilemma stats may be overly pessimistic and that the audience for fiction is being done an enormous disservice by marketing departments that, repeatedly and increasingly, seem to underestimate the intelligence and desires of readers. While all of the above may argue that challenging books (and I don’t mean inaccessible or elitist books, but works that question rather than reaffirm readers’ expectations) may have a smaller audience than works that only aim to entertain, they may have a larger audience than major press publishing seems to think. Every year a few works that seek to be of lasting value (while seeking to entertain as well), such as Franzen’s Freedom or Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squadbreak through and reach a wider audience. There may never be the audience for literary fiction that there is for the narrative of reassurance, but it is there and it’s probably greater than current publishing trends illustrate. Just because someone doesn’t naturally gravitate towards a more morally complex framework of thought doesn’t mean that framework cannot be interesting to them if presented. The Heinz Dilemma stats also don’t investigate whether this form of thinking can be acquired over time if a person is exposed. Human beings aren’t static, and change is possible.

I want to believe—and on my best days do believe—that writers who have made their peace with reaching a smaller audience in a deeper, more lasting way over those who’ve made a cynical premeditated choice to reach a larger audience in a simpler and more disposable way have a chance for a wider readership than they currently have. And the hope would be for work that seeks to matter and reach a wider audience—and that writers and marketing departments don’t decide beforehand that the two are always mutually exclusive. I have no expectations, the current industry trajectory being what it is, that this will be the case. But for both writers and readers there is always hope.

Rob Roberge is the author of four books of fiction, most recently The Cost of Living. His memoir, Liar, will be published by Crown in February, 2016. He can be found online at robroberge.com.
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24 Responses to “The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Literary Fiction’s Dilemma”

I’ve thought about this for years, in fact I even wrote a novel that could have been called the death of literature, or the last literary writer. It isn’t, but that’s what the book is about.
I don’t think the sparse appeal of complex literature, art or music has very much to do with the day and age. A little bit sure, as does everything else that makes up a culture. But the masses have always been drawn to the freak shows while a few prefer to seek out challenging and enlightening entertainment.
In the days of the Caesar probably more people were entertained by carnage in coliseums, wars and conquest than the works of Aristotle, Socrates or Homer. And public executions, hanging and beheadings were a popular draw since the dawn of time, with whole communities turning up in their best dress. I don’t know if those activities could be the equivalent of Breaking Bad or Fifty Shades or whatever for those societies and culture or not. I don’t know who or what existed for blamed then. I’m sure there were the same kinds of discussions going on somewhere though. I only know it’s shame and a bit bewildering for those few that more of the majority doesn’t prefer, need or want more enriching complex entertainment and that it should be celebrated, supported and encouraged on humankind of any culture of any day and age.
But we also all know that sex and violence sells way better, always has, does and probably always will. We love a good train wreck. We can turn our hearts away, not our eyes.
I’m no scholar like some of you here obviously are. I wasn’t raised in an academic home or environment and yet I’m one of the few among my friends and family that was reading Emerson in High School, because I wanted to. I enjoy Representative Men. Most kids did not.
The only conclusions I’ve come to in my thoughts are that our taste are mostly DNA that goes back further than recorded history. You can lead a kid or culture to a literary masterpiece but you can’t make him read it or even want to if he’d rather watch Honey Boo Boo or Jackass. And if more people or kids want to read Fifty Shades or Twilight that’s what the industry will produce. Demand and supply.
There will always be, I hope, good literature available to those who want it, but unfortunately that has and probably will remain in a minority.
And just for the record. I’m not picking on Honey Boo Boo, or Fifty Shades, never watched or read either one. It’s just what I’ve been bombarded with from the media in the last year or so so I used it as expample.

Rob, this essay is reductive when it could try to raise more good questions (as you’re advocating fiction should do – essays should do it too!). The binary you’re drawing between “literary” and “commercial” doesn’t exist — there are gradations. It’s fuzzy. If this were my piece, I’d have used the end to raise more good questions rather than simply expressing “hope” that “literary” fiction will win out in this simplistic battle scene. e.g. Why are smart people writing “narratives of reassurance” (besides the obvious reasons), and what is redeeming about those narratives? How can we complicate the hackneyed idea that “literary” and “commercial” are the two primary camps? When you label commercial authors’ choice “cynical” and their work “disposable” in the last para, you’re shutting down all of the questions your readers want to ask. Thanks for opening my eyes to how wonderful all the stuff I was assigned to read in college is — I had no idea. I also didn’t know that we are “messy creatures” and the world doesn’t have easy questions or answers — glad I got to take a trip back to high school for a sec.

Going a step further, I think essays like this are part of the reason why people would want to write for a large, commercial audience — this essay puts literary fiction in its own box rather than drawing some connectors between it and other more ostensibly commercial kinds of work.

For Rob, one more quick and very respectful disagreement (to your response to my first post). I try to keep up my reading on contemporary trends in neuroscience and though I agree in principle with the nuts and bolts of your statement, I actually think TV viewing is less passive than it’s ever been. The equipment we watch TV on is better and bigger than ever, more like watching a film in a theater, and proper film viewing certainly isn’t passive. Also, look at the success of Alan Sepinwall or the Onion AVClub or Slate or all these online venues which now have very deep and intricate discussions of shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men and The Wire which rival or surpass literary criticism, book reviews, or academic journals. As much as I agree that the collaborative bond formed between book and reader is a particularly inimitable one, TV is now both a more active form of entertainment and a legitimate art. A while back Gary Shteyngart called The Sopranos the greatest novel of the last fifteen years, and much as I lament the foregrounding of visual artforms over the classical novel, I can’t entirely disagree.
Still, all in all a very intriguing topic, article and expression of your perspective.

“Breaking Bad just debuted to massive ratings and it’s engaged with exactly the type of moral haziness explored by Heinz’s Dilemma”

If I may say, I think this is incorrect. It’s not moral haziness. To paraphrase Hannah Arendt, what you’re seeing is simply the acceptance of the standards of the drug dealer by the middle class in America who thrills at the revealing of its own true moral code and the relief of tension caused by the hypocrisy of haivng to deny this. Same thing with white kids and rap music. The moral standard of the businessman stripped of all hypocrisy. See Brecht. This is not new, it is old. The Europeans are 100 years ahead of us.

Also, who cares what the “mainstream” publishers are doing? Who cares if they ignore you? Anyone of you, myself included, can set up an eBook publishing house or a school of literature/poetry/etc and rock the pillars, if you’re good enough. And you don’t even need to be good although it does help to live in New York City. You may even get invited to the White House.

Behind a lot of this complaining seems to be a desire to make money and be loved by the same “mainstream” culture that this website demonizes when it is not celebrating it ecstatically. Money. All I hear is people complaining about money. And doing violence to the word “beautiful,” but that’s a comment for another day.

What was that one non-BS thing that Lacan said during the uprising? Something like “what you students really want a new Master?” Or in this case a better television. Haha.
Exactly.

Rob, the problem you describe, where marketing departments rather than editors make the call about what gets published, happens in every house, big or small, subsidized or not, including ours. I am not suggesting this is a good thing, just that it is the stark reality of publishing today because the economics are so onerous. Publishing literature is indeed a labor of love for us and literary presses of all sizes, but no house can afford to consistently lose tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. I ask writers to put themselves in the publisher’s position: what would you do if you faced the prospect of losing money on literary works even though you love them? My more hopeful and important question is what can literary writers, champions like the Rumpus, and producers like Torrey House Press do to both find and increase readership in a world of 200,000+ new, publisher produced titles released every year?

Kirsten–just to be clear, I’m not talking about ALL publishers (nor did I blame the problem solely ON publishers…I think plenty of writers play it WAY too safe to and underestimate their audience), but the marketing departments at MOST corporate-owned majors. Torrey House Press and others presses like it are not at ALL who I’m talking about, and I applaud what you do loudly and enthusiastically for your labors of love.

I’m talking about major presses that FREQUENTLY (it has happened to SEVERAL friends and colleagues) have 2 or 3, and up to 7 editors say yes…all the way up a chain…and a marketing director who hasn’t READ the book say no because they think the “subject matter” won’t sell. THAT is a broken system…but not everywhere (not even every major, I would guess) is like that, and I didn’t mean to sound so reductive. I apologize.

Great essay (though you overuse parentheses). Personally, I think Heinz should have stolen the meds and kicked the pharmacist in the balls while he was at it. And then gone on to invent ketchup and make a billion dollars to pay for the lawyers to keep him out of jail. But if you really want to see a disappearing audience and major publishing house indifference, try writing poetry.

Mainstream American culture is bankrupt and its productions purposefully empty, though I have to say a show like Mad Med, at least in its first four seasons, was pretty good about giving us morally complex characters. And serious film does this, too. Have you seen the Danish film Hijacked? Brilliant and completely unpredictable in terms of where you place yourself ethically. There’s a remarkable scene where the Somali pirates (painfully thin) and the crew of the ship they’re holding hostage start singing drinking songs together. Of course there were about twelve people in the theater when I saw it.

I don’t think publishers and the book industry’s marketing cycles are to blame here. The intellectual and emotional engagement of literary fiction and memoir are why we at Torrey House Press publish books, but the economics at the publisher level are oppressive: a frightening majority of literary fiction and memoir titles sell a tiny fraction–I am not kidding–of what they did even five to ten years ago, and sales of this frightening majority of titles do not even cover the expenses of producing a book. Please do not blame publishers for this state of affairs–we want it to be different as much as writers do.

Rob,
What a great examination of why we read (and write) fiction. I think book marketing too often offers up an escapist alternate reality where the reader becomes a voyeur rather than an empathetic participant and is not ever invited to consider “the other”. A lot of great teachable stuff in here as well. Well done.

I just lit up when I saw this was your piece, Rob. I am pasting it into my folder titled “Teaching Stuff” which is like my hope chest, the place I put essays for that course I dream of teaching before I’m senile. And also great response to Sean H. A friend of mine at a dance academy here in LA recently told me that “writing will be obsolete soon.” She has no understanding of how writing is a way of learning about the world. She hasn’t made the connection, either, that to attempt writing is to gain a deeper appreciation of great writing, just as to attempt dancing…etc. Ah, me. I was only grateful that she didn’t include reading as soon to be obsolete. After all, she is a school administrator, for christsake.

Jesus, Rob. I’ve been railing against the most obnoxious forms of marketing for years, but I could never explain, even to myself, why it bothered me so much. This does that. Thank you thank you thank you. Also, thank you.

Rob, great piece. I haven’t read Jane’s book, will seek it out as it seems, as you admit, that the “decline” is anecdotal, would love to read more on this.

Has there ever been an era where the vast majority of people would not consume culture of reassurance?

I guess maybe there was one word missing from your piece – fear. I live in Australia and don’t consume much mainstream media anymore because it seems too driven by the primary objective of raising collective fear. No doubt the more fear and anxiety in a culture, the more that culture will look for reassurance. Yes, we are ok. Yes, we are heading int he right direction. Yes, retail therapy is good and normal. &c.

I now know what my dining table conversation will be with my 6, 11 and 13 year olds, the Heinz dilemma. I will be fascinated by their response.

One thing I’ve always been fascinated with is the difference between percentages and numbers in this geometrically reproducing world. I don’t think there’s any question that a smaller percentage of the general population give a damn about new literature, but in my lifetime alone this country has grown from 175 million in 1958 to over 316 million today. I have no data whatsoever (because no one does) but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were as many people regularly reading literature today as there were in 1958 — maybe more.

That said, there are obviously many, many, many more literary novels out there to read today than there were in 1958. Which begs the question: is the problem you are identifying a fear of a reduction in the number of readers of literary fiction, or a reduction of readers who are interested in reading “new” literary fiction.

The biggest problem I see for literature is that marketing departments are deciding what is good. Freedom, Goon Squad, and Art of Fielding are kind of interesting, but there is much more worthwhile fiction out there. The best two somewhat new books I’ve read recently are Anthony Doerr’s Memory Wall and Annie Dillard’s The Maytrees. And by far and away, the most fun read I’ve had within the past two weeks is Adam Johnson’s story “Nirvana” posted by Esquire last week. I’m going to guess every die-hard viewer of Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Homeland would love that piece — if they only knew it was out there.

Very interesting essay here. I don’t know how a writer would deliberately write mainstream commercial or literary fiction. I can’t do that. In some ways I wish I did, could. But I can only put out what I have inside, whatever that may be called and on certain rare occasions I write better than I think I can. Those occasions are why I write. They also give me hope that what I’ve written may emotionally connect, enlighten or inspire another human being in the here or future.
But, write or wrong, I’d also steal, kill or die to save the ones I love.
Maybe not kill. Depends. I would like to get through without that though.

Thank you, Rob. One of the things that gives me hope is that significant political/social/ideological change has always been launched by a small number of people. 10-15% (the number that agreed with Heinz) is more than enough–to get things started. Also, the books vs. TV question is interesting (particularly your point about reading being collaborative vs. the inactive nature of viewing) but the perhaps unfortunate truth is that all the various forms of media are morphing as our technology changes (I wouldn’t even have read this if it wasn’t for a Facebook post). The question for artists is how to create content that breaks through whatever inherent weaknesses exist in the specific medium they work in. And, among artists, I wouldn’t be surprised, nor upset, to find that it’s “only” 10-15% that want to push things that far. Again, that’s plenty. Their audience will find them and things will move on from there. They always have.

It is really hard to find honest, objective reviews of literary books. There are a bunch written by fawning, aspiring writers or by writers who don’t want to make enemies, etc. I think there’s also an emperor/clothes thing going on. But without honest, objective reviews, crappy novels get hyped and the casual reader doesn’t know who or what to trust. And it is so much easier to not read (and watch some great, addictive tv).

Not to detour off the intellectual arch here, but I think it’s safe to also say ol’ Heinz be thoroughly messing up if’ing he don’t also liberate a mess of oxies while he’s so nobly heisting the overly marked up radium meds for his old lady. I mean I’m only too sure 90% of all those 15-yrs and older would agree.

Sean H: I think you bring up a great point…and one i did consider while working on this. The difference for me is largely that reading is a collaborative act–meaning is created between the text and the reader. Whereas TV is, by all neurological studies, a form of passive, rather than active (as is reading) form of entertainment.
Also, the argument that people no longer have time to read has been brought up since the advent of radio, if not before, so I’m not sure it’s true–though there IS more media than ever before, so you’re dead on there.
I really DO think you have a good point and argue it well. And I would have addressed morally ambiguous TV if I were focusing on more than writing here–so I really appreciate your engaged and smart comments.
Rob

A compelling if fatally flawed thesis. I admire the author’s investigations but linking the small percentage of people who seem to exhibit complex thought about morality with the small number of literary titles that have a wide readership is upended by the success of morally ambiguous television. High-end TV has replaced reading because our American contemporary culture is now an image-driven one. Reading is not respected and ours is an anti-intellectual country.

Breaking Bad just debuted to massive ratings and it’s engaged with exactly the type of moral haziness explored by Heinz’s Dilemma. People are simply overworked and do not feel they have the time to read. But they can devote an hour to a few TV shows a week (or 47 minutes, in the case of the Breakng Bad season premiere, for those who use a DVR or Amazon or ITunes to watch). Watching serial TV shows has replaced reading novels for most normal people.

There are still bibliophiles and pleasure readers out there, but the average Joe and Jane just don’t read as much as they used to. There’s too much other stuff competing for their time and they’re being bombarded by advertisements for many other things that are not reading.

You don’t mention story. A good story, which includes a compelling voice, whether in either popular or literary fiction, sells the product, as they say. It propels the audience into the midst of the kind of dilemmas you’re talking about.

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